Bruno Senna out of F1?

After a promising few grand prix's for Lotus Renault in 2010 and a solid, if a little unspectacular year with Williams, i wonder what is next for Bruno?
Personally, i think it would be a bit of a shame to not see him in F1.
I think he has more potential than he showed in 2012, he said he struggled with getting heat into the tires in qualifying, losing some pratice sessions/ sharing the car with Bottas cant have helped.
Reading the news feeds some are suggesting Petrov will be retained at Caterham, Force India reportedly are deciding between Sutil and Bianchi no mention of Bruno there.
So, anyway, this is not a "fan" page for Bruno, but just a post asking if anyone has read any news, perhaps coming out of brazil about what hes up this year?
Cheers

imo if Kamui can't find an F1 seat, it would be outrageous if Bruno got one.

No one can say he's not had enough chances now, he has. tbh he wouldn't have lasted that long had his name been different.

I'm not happy in saying that, I would really have loved him to come into F1 and blow people away, sadly it wasn't to be and although he's a really nice guy, he doesn't have any of his uncles talent or 'fire' in him.

After a promising few grand prix's for Lotus Renault in 2010 and a solid, if a little unspectacular year with Williams, i wonder what is next for Bruno?Personally, i think it would be a bit of a shame to not see him in F1. I think he has more potential than he showed in 2012, he said he struggled with getting heat into the tires in qualifying, losing some pratice sessions/ sharing the car with Bottas cant have helped.Reading the news feeds some are suggesting Petrov will be retained at Caterham, Force India reportedly are deciding between Sutil and Bianchi no mention of Bruno there.So, anyway, this is not a "fan" page for Bruno, but just a post asking if anyone has read any news, perhaps coming out of brazil about what hes up this year?Cheers

I think we need to redefine shame perhaps. Shame is Kamui and Alguersuari won't be on grid next year.For Bruno, good riddance, his qualifying average in FW34 was worse than Maldonado's qualifying average in FW33.

Pretty brutal guys.....
He was as fast as/ faster than Maldonado in GP2.
I think he needs some stability..... Renault was a few races, not enough to get settled in.....
Williams a brand new team so again no time to settle in... look at Hulk vs Barrichello... same thing, Pastor was settled in, plus Bruno missed a lot of time with Bottas using his practise sessions.
I think Bruno's main problem with quali was that he couldnt get heat into the tires and it was hurting him, he thought that next years tires would be a bit more stable and that it would help him. He raced well, consistant and fast.
I think he could do well and i think Williams would have kept him if it hadnt been for Bottas, im sure Bottas was always going to be in the car in 2013 no matter what- i think Bruno new that at the beginning of 2012
I do admit though there are a lot of good drivers out of work at the moment

He's currently trying to raise additional sponsorship to secure the other Caterham seat, according to this ESPN.com.br article. In competition with Petrov, who you'd think would have an advantage after his heroism at last year's Brazilian Grand Prix. He's trying to find the same level of sponsorship from Russian business. A real battle of the BRICs.

There are reports that Bruno has committed to a Kart race in Brazil- hint perhaps that he is not in Europe negotiating any future in F1. If he does not get a drive this season, I reckon its over in F1 for him- for good. He was exceptionally quick in Gp2 and blew off Digrassi during that Honda shootout. Somewhere, something went awry and that speed he showed has not translated to F1. I suspect a future in DTM/Sportscars awaits.

Like most others, I would have loved to see him (with that surname) come into F1 and excel, but it hasn't happened. As for it being 'a bit of a shame' not to see him in F1 next season, again like others I'd say it's more a shame that we perhaps won't see the likes of Kovalainen, Kobayashi & Alguersuari. I wish him the very best though.

I think Senna's driving was beautiful to watch, but in the end he just was not fast enough. Solid middlefielder nothing more. Plenty of them are out of drive and for Senna it is very clear in my opinion that he is not championship material. If someone still believed in him, they would take his money.

imo if Kamui can't find an F1 seat, it would be outrageous if Bruno got one.

No one can say he's not had enough chances now, he has. tbh he wouldn't have lasted that long had his name been different.

I'm not happy in saying that, I would really have loved him to come into F1 and blow people away, sadly it wasn't to be and although he's a really nice guy, he doesn't have any of his uncles talent or 'fire' in him.

Lasted that long because of his name? He's had one year at Williams with no Fridays, minimal testing, a handful of races at Lotus no testing and straight on the pace and a year at HRT driving a badly setup GP2 car.

Senna can be equal to Maldonado or slightly faster, whether it's F1 or GP2, and he picked up the pace at the end of the season but he's not as fast as Pastor on a VERY consistent basis. On that one, I'd kick him out.

I think we've seen enough of Bruno to know that, while hardly a disgrace to F1, he's not going to be the next Senna ;)

That always intrigues me actually, why does everyone seem to be expecting the next Senna all the time? We're not always guaranteed to have the racing gods like Senna, Prost, Schumacher around every generation. As it stands we've got the incredible Alonso and lightning fast Hamilton in F1 and that's about our lot then you have your Vettel's, Button's, Raikkonen's, Hulkenberg's etc. It is possible to win a championship in a Torro Rosso but we haven't got a new genius and with the current filtered conditioned production line of F1 drivers we won't get one. The best chance we have is the next big thing coming from a different motorsport direction altogether.

Agree. As a fan I want the best possible F1 season and there are plenty of excellent and better drivers without a seat - so please do not waste opportunities with Senna anymore.

You would be rid of Bruno, and call him a wasted opportunity - yet you would allow people like Maldonado, like Grosjean, like Pic, like Karthekeyan, pass without complaint? At least Senna does not crash into everything that moves!

Senna can be equal to Maldonado or slightly faster, whether it's F1 or GP2, and he picked up the pace at the end of the season but he's not as fast as Pastor on a VERY consistent basis. On that one, I'd kick him out.

I think Senna was a lot faster than he got the opportunity to show - yes, he messed up some qualifyings, but I can think of several more that the team screwed up for him, the chief of those being Barcelona.

Senna is quick, clever, a good driver, a good overtaker. What has Maldonado shown? Speed, yes - and a carelessness for the safety of others that is scary, so much so that others will now jump out of his way rather than race him for fear of instant DNF. It was a good thing Maldonado brought all that government money; Williams must have needed it to pay for the cars he smashed.

Can someone please tell me what chances he has really had? He's never been with a team for more than a year. He's been in horribly uncomfortable situations that other drivers on the grid never dream of. His first year, in a veritable load of junk, with no money, and a teamboss who disliked him; his second, testing, and then thrown into the car with only a handful of races to go, and was immediately on the pace of his no-slouch teammate. Then tossed by a veritable prick of a boss for a french crash-a-holic with Total backing, and found a way into Williams, against an established teammate, who had so much money backing he didn't care what he wrecked, who was quick, and a team that made him sit out every Friday practice, and yet, in spite of the fact that Maldonado won a race and 25 points to go with it, Bruno NEARLY BEAT HIM in the point standings.

Can someone tell me what's so terrible about all of this? There are many drivers who would not have done half so well. I wager that if Vettel or Hamilton found themselves in his situation, they would not have done any better. And yet Bruno finds himself under constant criticism, constant pressure, constant scrutiny, and he is treated harder by the fans than any other rookie or driver, simply because of his name.

Give him a decent car, equal treatment, and time, and watch him flourish. Others with lesser qualifications have been given chances. Why not him?

That always intrigues me actually, why does everyone seem to be expecting the next Senna all the time? We're not always guaranteed to have the racing gods like Senna, Prost, Schumacher around every generation. As it stands we've got the incredible Alonso and lightning fast Hamilton in F1 and that's about our lot then you have your Vettel's, Button's, Raikkonen's, Hulkenberg's etc. It is possible to win a championship in a Torro Rosso but we haven't got a new genius and with the current filtered conditioned production line of F1 drivers we won't get one. The best chance we have is the next big thing coming from a different motorsport direction altogether.

Sure - if they build a car the equal to or quicker than RBR/McLaren/Ferrari etc etc...

Why he should stay in F1? His qualification speed is simply "amazing" in minus. His racecraft is poor, his race pace is avarage, only good car made him better than he really was (though he still massively underperformed in it). Maldonado trashed him during whole year, if not Maldo brainfades he would get few more podiums (like Valencia). While Senna wasnt event once close to a podium.

The general problem is that, due to the testing ban, drivers are not being properly evaluated or allowed to train properly for their F1 opportunities. Hence, an F1 career can be over after a season in a tricky car, or coming up against an exceptional (but not yet acknowledged team-mate) or just bad luck.

Whether Bruno deserves another seat is a marginal call for me. I would not begrudge him one last shot, but there are other drivers who deserve the opportunities too.

The general problem is that, due to the testing ban, drivers are not being properly evaluated or allowed to train properly for their F1 opportunities. Hence, an F1 career can be over after a season in a tricky car, or coming up against an exceptional (but not yet acknowledged team-mate) or just bad luck.

Whether Bruno deserves another seat is a marginal call for me. I would not begrudge him one last shot, but there are other drivers who deserve the opportunities too.

Ideally, it should not come down to that, as luck can play too much of a role.

That's also true.But Bruno's 40+ races should be enough of a sample size already.

And "proper" chance argument doesn't matter. How many drivers get an ideal chance anyway? Only very few. Most of them have to fight with disadvantages, either the car is too bad, the team athmosphere isn't very good (see Piquet at Renault), the car doesn't suit very well for whatever reason, preparation was insufficient, just genuine unluck, etc. Only few and strongest prevail.

There will always be the detractors, Bruno's problem is that he has Ayrton fans who wont support him because he is not Ayrton and Ayrton detractors that wanna take it out on Bruno. Bruno is a strong driver very good on the brakes very intelligent with the setup and treats F1 as a university, to go out now is mis-timed just as it is with Kobayashi. Kobayashi will be back though.

You would be rid of Bruno, and call him a wasted opportunity - yet you would allow people like Maldonado, like Grosjean, like Pic, like Karthekeyan, pass without complaint? At least Senna does not crash into everything that moves!

you know the saying: "easier to fix a crash prone but fast driver, than to make a slow but accident-free fast"

I think Senna was a lot faster than he got the opportunity to show - yes, he messed up some qualifyings, but I can think of several more that the team screwed up for him, the chief of those being Barcelona.

IIRC he spun off in Q1? hardly the teams fault.

He's never been with a team for more than a year.

that's actually quite telling, I think.

in spite of the fact that Maldonado won a race and 25 points to go with it, Bruno NEARLY BEAT HIM in the point standings.

or you could spin it the other way: despite Maldonado crashing a lot (as you pointed out) Senna wasn't able to beat him. a good driver could capitalize on his teammate crashing out all the time, see Raikkönen-Grosjean, Kimi collected more than twice as much as Grosjean, not only two thirds of his teammates points, like Bruno.

also, Maldonado had a lot of bad luck in great positions: in bahrain he got a puncture -> DNF, when running about 5 seconds behind (and faster than) 5th finisher Rosberg, despite starting from 24th, in singapore, running 3rd or 4th, he first got screwed by the team, called to the pits when the field was close thanks to the SC, then got a DNF, in abu dhabi he was running close behind race winner Raikkönen, before his KERS gave up and slid back to 5th.

Can someone tell me what's so terrible about all of this? There are many drivers who would not have done half so well. I wager that if Vettel or Hamilton found themselves in his situation, they would not have done any better.

I'll happily concede neither of the 3 chances he had were fair, #1 on an awful car with no resources to prepare it properly, #2 thrown in at the middle of the season and #3 often without free practices. However, the problem with Bruno is he's never looked QUICK at any point. Solid and reliable yes, consistent yes, but never quick. You'd expect it to be the other way around if he had potential but hindered by the poor conditions he drove in, he'd have glimpses of speed but unable to extract to hit it regularly. As it is he barely looked quicker than Chandhok, didn't look as quick as Petrov and his highs weren't anywhere near as high as Maldonado's. Sorry I don't buy it that he has potential, and won't cry if his F1 career is over. He's not a bad driver but you could say that about too many people and there's only 22 seats. As others have said, there's plenty other similar yet slightly more exciting drivers around without a seat - Kobayashi, Alguersuari, Sutil, Kovalainen, even Buemi...

Never bought into the idea that he was anything special from his GP2 days. The famous Honda test did fool a lot of people though. Perhaps he would be a different driver these days had he done karting properly from the beginning as a kid, but life is what it is.

He was never good enough for F1 to begin with. Inconsistent, crash-prone and just flat out slow. Maldonado might be a bit of a car magnet himself, but at least he can shine on his day. Bruno was never seriously impressive once with a very capable car.

Most drivers would not have gotten a second chance after his 2010 HRT season, let alone after his 2011 Renault season. You know why he even won his Renault seat over Heidfeld to begin with?

I'll happily concede neither of the 3 chances he had were fair, #1 on an awful car with no resources to prepare it properly, #2 thrown in at the middle of the season and #3 often without free practices...

I agree with the rest of your post, however, with this I would say that there wasn't anything unfair about his first drive relative to what mattered: his performance against his team-mates. You're right about Chandhok, but the real warning signs came when he was thrashed by Klien in Singapore and Brazil qualifying. He was even out-qualified by Yamamoto in Korea. Senna has had three subpar drives but there's more than enough to suggest that the speed just hasn't been there from the beginning.

I agree with the rest of your post, however, with this I would say that there wasn't anything unfair about his first drive relative to what mattered: his performance against his team-mates. You're right about Chandhok, but the real warning signs came when he was thrashed by Klien in Singapore and Brazil qualifying. He was even out-qualified by Yamamoto in Korea. Senna has had three subpar drives but there's more than enough to suggest that the speed just hasn't been there from the beginning.

I honestly don't know if the rumours of Senna having a much heavier car than the others in the team is true. It would kinda fit Kolles to do such a thing, but I don't know. And the Singapore-qual I agree with. However, in Brazil, Klien got a last run, Senna didn't. And it was much better conditions then, than earlier (also in Q1, not only Q3)

Well, something to ponder is if there is any truth that Frank Williams wanted him back for 2013. I'd wager Frank must have known something we didn't if that was true.

Bruno did have the fastest lap at Spa this past season during the race which is impressive to me for such a "slow" driver. Sure a few of the top drivers got knocked out due to Grosjean's stupidity. Yet, it's not like the entire field was nearly gone. His biggest problem really was qualifying. His ability in races was rather solid. A shame he never did figure out qualifying since with a bunch more Q3 appearances, he could have finished with a lot more points for Williams.

But really, when has a F1 grid ever fielded the best possible talent? Never. Even the 2012 season for all of it's acclaim was not the best possible grid. There never has been a perfect grid, some just have happened to be better than others due to a wide variety of circumstances. Talent while obviously helpful has never been the sole arbiter of who does, or does not get to the grid. We just to subscribe to the belief that it wins out. There's a lot of guys who've driven for a full season that had message boards been around then, people would have been screaming to anyone who'd listen. I always cite the example of Andrea de Cesaris as he had a rather long F1 career in spite of rarely finishing races. I can imagine us posting on Autosport circa 1985-1986. People would be melting down in anger over him.

This thread wasnt created to discuss the merits of Bruno's driving skills.I guess the mods got so sick of this type of discussion hence why all the threads got closed down.

This thread is ENQUIRING ABOUT BRUNO'S PLANS FOR 2013 BE IT IN F1 OR ANOTHER SERIES.

Please leave all the discussions about what you think about his driving skills / comparisons to other drivers in another thread..

He was never good enough for F1 to begin with. Inconsistent, crash-prone and just flat out slow. Maldonado might be a bit of a car magnet himself, but at least he can shine on his day. Bruno was never seriously impressive once with a very capable car.

Most drivers would not have gotten a second chance after his 2010 HRT season, let alone after his 2011 Renault season. You know why he even won his Renault seat over Heidfeld to begin with?

I've been keeping an eye on his Twitter account to see if something gets spilled, but I've not seen anything to date. I know Juan Kerr said in the Bruno Senna topic he would be driving for Force India in 2013, but I've seen nothing to indicate he will even be a real consideration for the seat. I believe Caterham may be his only option, and with Petrov as the other option, I have real doubts as to his chances of getting onto the grid. Not to say it can't happen, but it seems unlikely.

Bruno did have the fastest lap at Spa this past season during the race which is impressive to me for such a "slow" driver.

In the era of ban of refueling and multiple tyre pit stops, fastest laps are really meaningless statistic. Bruno changed tyres with 5 laps to go. It was like qualifying laps for him at the end of the race: low fuel and new tyres. It really doesn't say anything.

His biggest problem really was qualifying. His ability in races was rather solid. A shame he never did figure out qualifying since with a bunch more Q3 appearances, he could have finished with a lot more points for Williams.

Yes, his biggest problem was qualifying. But it was not the only one if you look at races like Bahrain, Italy and especially Canada.

The other noticeable fact is that Bruno is never ever really competitive throughout the whole weekend. He had some good qualifying performances at Lotus, but never combined with good race. He had some decent races at Williams, but never extracted the maximum from qualifying. He seems to be unable to perform his best under pressure. He needs to be overcautious and therefore a bit slow, otherwise he ends up colided or spun. When he tried to impress with Lotus, he was making mistakes. When he tried to push at Williams, he almost took Maldonado out in Malaysia, spun in qualifying in Barcelona and in Spa, spun in Great Britain where he was on good position after opening laps.He has learned how not to push to much and collect points, but you need to push if you want to impress. Good car and Maldonado's inability of collecting points made him look better than he really was last season.

This thread wasnt created to discuss the merits of Bruno's driving skills.

The OP discusses the merits of Bruno's driving.

After a promising few grand prix's for Lotus Renault in 2010 and a solid, if a little unspectacular year with Williams, i wonder what is next for Bruno?Personally, i think it would be a bit of a shame to not see him in F1. I think he has more potential than he showed in 2012, he said he struggled with getting heat into the tires in qualifying, losing some pratice sessions/ sharing the car with Bottas cant have helped.